my hard drive seams to be bloating

[acarrion]

Yes, it will loose somewhere around 500mb a night. I dont know if it is a virus or what. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[gubbinsgeek]

can't seen to find any start to this thread.. but here goes,

1.is this machine on all the time? if so, what is your swapfile set to? limit it's size to 1.5x the physical ram of the computer [if you have 512Mb set to 768Mb ect...] if you have 1Gb or more of RAM, you can saftly turn the swap off[under most circomstances] and this is of massive benefit to system performance...
2. check your system restore settings, control pannel>system>system restore>settings what percentage of your drive is it set to take over, if this is a 1 drive system[just a 'C:\' drive] LIMIT IT

hope this helps

 

[linney]

This program might be useful for any diagnosing of Disk Space usage.

http://www.digallery.com/diskdata/

something is cosuming the hard drive freespace
Thread779-810374

Where is my disk space?
Thread779-719423

Delete Offline Flies
Thread779-816712

316505 - Windows XP Does Not Recognize All Available Disk Space

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316505&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

How to Locate and Correct Disk Space Problems on NTFS Volumes in Windows XP(Q315668)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q315/6/68.asp

The Default Cluster Size for the NTFS and FAT File Systems(Q314878)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q314/8/78.asp

Run the Disk Cleanup tool and use the "More Options" tab to remove all but the most recent restore point.


You don't really want Restore Points going back too far as they will more than likely uninstall all programs or settings you have changed since your "go back point" causing you more problems than it may fix.

The average restore point is 25mb+ with a "first in, first out" policy on restore points. They contain mainly deleted or altered exe, dlls, shortcuts and a registry backup and user profile details. They do not contain users data.

Keeping restore points for a week seems adequate. Amount of disk space used depends on the size of your restore points. Some restore points can be as large as 500mb after major alterations to a system (ie a new service pack or several hefty program installs, or running SFC /Scannow).

310312 - Description of the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310312&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

http://www.theeldergeek.com/system_volume_information_folder1.htm

2) More On Cleaning Out Old "Service Pack" Folders

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-01-30.htm#2

308008 - How to Remove the Windows XP Uninstallation Files

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308008&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Do you use Hibernation? If not turn it off to save 500+MB.

307987 - HOW TO: Use File Compression in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307987&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

 

[devil966]

I hate to mention this but that could also be indicative of some sort of trojan. Is your connection always on? If so, do a thorough virus scan. There are free online ones, such as

http://www.antivirus.com

and

http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/trojanscan.asp

 

[Frank4d]

In addition to other posts above... do you have a TV tuner card that is inadvertently set to record 30-minutes of "Desperate Housewives" at the same time everyday?